Everything I'm Not
by kialajaray
Summary: Helga finally realized it, everything he wanted was everything she wasn't.


**ok, blame this on a 'friend' of mine who frequently pisses me off. if you read this one and my other one called things i cant say, you'll understand what i mean. anyway, this is based off the song called everything i'm not by the veronicas. **

summary: Helga finally realized it, everything he wanted was everything that she wasn't

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Seventeen year old Helga Pataki ignored the concerned raised voices from her family as she entered her house and ran up the stairs, her footfalls muffled by the carpeted staircase.

Reaching her room, she quickly closed the door and locked it. She knew that her family would come to see what was wrong and she didn't want to have to lie to them.

Wiping the tears away from her eyes, she glanced down at her hand and saw the eye liner and mascara that had taken over an hour for her to put on correctly. Wiping it on the new, white dress she was wearing, she stepped forward, only to stumble when she lost her footing in the high heels she was wearing.

Jerking them off, she threw them across the room, barely missing the mirror that was hanging on the wall. She didn't care though. She was past caring about anything. Caring is what had gotten her into this in the first place.

She still loved Arnold. She had a feeling that she would. Nothing could ever change the heart stopping, breathlessness feeling she would get when she would see him. She still loved him, of course, he still didn't have a clue. Helga was tired of loving him from afar and wanted to be with him, so she tried to make herself 'pretty' for him. She changed her hair, put on makeup, wore a dress that was extremely uncomfortable, she had even wore God forsaken heels.

This was all in preparation for on of Rhonda Lloyd's famous parties. Helga was beautiful, she knew she was. And she knew that Arnold would have to think so too. With her confidence the highest it had ever been, she went to the party, anxious for Arnold to notice her. She could barely breathe with all the excitement coursing threw her.

When he had finally seen her, he smiled at her and walked towards her. Helga had been waiting for this moment her whole life, and it was finally going to happen. When he reached her, all he said was, "Hi, Helga. You look wonderful."

Giving him an enormous smile, she was about to thank him when something behind her caught his attention. "Excuse me," he told her, then walked away from her without a backwards glance.

Turning around, Helga saw that Lila had arrived at the party, and Arnold quickly made his way to her. Helga felt her heart break, then shatter into unfixable little pieces. She continued to watch as her two classmates blushed when they spoke to each other. Apparently, Arnold asked Lila to dance because they made their way to the dance floor.

The next few hours, Helga put on a smile and acted like nothing was wrong, while she didn't think that nothing was ever going to be right again. She couldn't help but glance at Arnold as he danced with Lila the whole time, smiling every minute of it.

Feeling her eyes start to sting, she went to the bathroom, not able to tolerate the thought of watching them for another minute. Closing the door, she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It wasn't a surprise that Arnold was ecstatic to see Lila. He had been crazy about her ever since she arrived in Hillwood. Telling herself that she would be alright, she heard footsteps that stopped in front of the bathroom door.

"They just made it official," one voice said. Helga recognized it as Nadine.

"It's about time," another voice said. That was Shelly.

"They make such a cute couple, I don't know why it took them so long to get together," Nadine told Shelly. "It's not like it isn't obvious that they're into each other."

"I think I might know why it took so long," Shelly said with a snicker.

"Why," Nadine asked, apparently hanging on every word the girl was telling her.

"Lila was probably afraid that Helga would beat her up. Did you see the way she was dressed? Everyone knows that she's obsessed with Arnold. She did it all just to get him to notice her. It's hilarious that he didn't even give her second glance, and that was before Lila even showed up."

"You are so bad," Nadine told the girl, laughing. "I wouldn't be able to hold my head up if I were her. That is so desperate."

Jerking the door open, Helga put a smile on her face. "Thank you," she told them. "It's wonderful to know that you spend all your time talking about me. It's too bad that some people don't have anything else better to do with their own lives other than talk about people."

Holding her head high, she gave the two flabbergasted girls another smile and walked past them.

Well, so much for her secret. She should have known that her 'friends' would realize eventually that she cared about Arnold. Why should she be surprised? And she couldn't be upset either. Everything that Nadine and Shelly said was the truth, except for the fighting Lila part. She was sure that everyone was thinking the same thing that they had.

She quickly scanned the room for Phoebe, ignoring the red head dancing with the blonde with an oddly shaped head.

Finding her, she was able to force herself to walk slowly to her best friend. "Phoebe," she told her when she reached the petite girl. "Would you be able to get Gerald to take you home?"

"Is something wrong Helga," the girl asked her, but Helga knew that Phoebe already had the answer. She could read Helga like a book.

"No," Helga lied. "I just have a headache."

She saw the compassion in her friend's eyes and Helga knew that Phoebe knew why she was leaving. "Go home then. I can ask Gerald."

"Thank you. I'll see you tomorrow."

After walking away from the girl, Helga was able to keep her composure until the front door of the Lloyd house was firmly closed. That was when the tears started to prick Helga's eyes. Unable to keep them inside, she let them fall as she walked to her car.

That was how she ended up sitting on her bed, crying her eyes out.

Arnold as finally with Lila. She wanted to scream until she couldn't breathe any more. What wasn't she doing right? What made Lila so much better than her? What more would she have to do to make Arnold-

Something broke inside Helga. She didn't know what, after all these years, had caused it, but she was tired. Tired of not being enough for him. Tired of wanting to change herself for him. Tired of not being Lila.

He had never asked her to change of course. He had always told her that he liked her the way she was, that she didn't need to change. That was something he had told her since they were young. But that didn't stop her from wanting to change for him. He saw past the bitch she was. He wasn't like the rest of the people they grew up with. He was different, he was prefect. But, Helga conceded, that probably started everything to go downhill.

He didn't want her to change, but he at the same time, he didn't like the way she acted. If he realized the mixed signals he was giving her, she didn't know and doubted that she ever would know. That was why he wanted Lila, not her. Lila was perfection, just like him. He had to have her. But Helga knew that she wasn't, she had too many problems to ever be prefect.

Glancing in the mirror she had almost broken, realized that this wasn't her. The hair and the makeup, or even the clothes weren't her. She was too busy trying to be the girl who could be his everything to realize that she had lost herself in the process.

As much as she loved him, she knew that she didn't need someone like him in her life. He would forever try to change the way she was. From how she talked, right down to how she brushed her hair. She didn't need someone to run her life for her. She could do that just fine on her own. She knew that Lila wouldn't have one problem following whatever he said.

But Helga doubted that he would ever rebuke her. They were perfectly prefect together and no one could ever come close to what Arnold saw in Lila.

She had spent so long chasing after Arnold that she didn't realize that she had other boys who wanted her, just the way she was. She didn't have to change for them; they hadn't wanted anything from her, other than her being herself. But she was so involved with Arnold that she had let boys like Brainy and Arnie pass her by.

This was her life and she wasn't going to torture herself any more, trying to be Lila. She liked the person that she was, and if Arnold couldn't like her for who she was, then she didn't need him.

She finally saw that she had spent her life trying to be like Lila, and she didn't need to be. Lila and Helga were polar opposites. She was everything that Helga wasn't and Helga was done with trying to be her.

She knew that it would take a long while to get over Arnold, if she ever did. But she couldn't take not being enough for him anymore.

Hearing a knock on the door, she quickly wiped her face and went to open it.

"Are you alright sweetie," her mother asked her worried.

Smiling sadly, Helga looked at her mother and said, "Yes, Mom, I am. I'm more alright than I have been in a long time.

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**i didn't really like this but i think that it's good. plz review and tell me what you think.**

**kialajaray**


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